Truths suppressed by the Establishment and society generally, and analytical overviews of reality to deepen understanding. All contents copyrighted. Brief quotations with attribution and URL [jasonzenith.blogspot.com] permitted.
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Thursday, August 28, 2014

The Boys Who Keep Crying Wolf (Russian Bear, actually) in Kiev may finally be right this time.

The Kiev regime installed in power with U.S.-bloc connivance is squealing yet again about Russian troops (and, they claim, heavy military equipment) inside Ukraine. Russia is once again denying it. Yet a Ukrainian separatist chieftain went on TV to brag about “4,000” Russians helping fight the Kiev regime's forces. Not very plausibly, he claimed they were volunteers taking their vacation time to fight in Ukraine's civil war.

If there really are 4,000 Russian nationals fighting in Ukraine, I rather doubt they are 4,000 individuals who spontaneously on their own decided to go to Ukraine to fight. (Not many people have the zealous commitment of Jihadists, tens of thousands of whom travel from numerous countries to fight on the latest frontline in their global “Holy War.” In regard to that, the newly self-crowned “Caliph” of the “Caliphate” of the “Islamic State” made a savvy move. Fulfilling the dream of creating the Caliphate is sure to be a strong draw for yet more Islamofascists to join up with him.) So the 4,000 part might be true, or it might be exaggerated, or a boast (the separatist leaders seem given to bluster and bombast) but the part about them all being volunteers acting on their own is far-fetched. [Later today, the U.S. government radio propaganda network NPR reported that U.S. officials say there are 1,000 Russian troops in Ukraine.]

This has been a recurring problem for the Russians. They and the Ukrainian separatists are often reading from different and contradictory (or at least inconsistent) pages. The Russians have their scripts, and the Ukrainian separatists are undisciplined and inexperienced and not under Russian control (contrary to Western propaganda and repeated assertions by government bosses of the U.S. and EU), so they are given to spouting off without thinking or planning the effects of their words. So what they say is more honest in terms of reflecting their real thoughts and attitudes, and potentially more accurate as there is not the careful calculation Russian officials engage in before speaking.

The Ukrainian separatists are constantly stepping on Russia's propaganda lines and various assertions. But this doesn't stop Western “leaders” (government bosses) and propagandists (aka “journalists” and “commentators” and even some “historians”) from constantly painting the separatists as totally under Russia's control, if not puppets.

The U.S.' ambassador to the UN, Samantha “I'm So Moral!” Power has been attacking Russia almost daily, today demanding that “Russia has to stop lying and has to stop fueling this conflict.” She attacked Putin by name today for supporting “armed separatists.” (Well who supported armed rioters who overthrew the previous Ukrainian elected government, even AFTER it agreed to early elections, Samantha?) Power refers to the “illegal separatists.” Unlike the South Sudan “legal” separatists, backed by the U.S. Of course, legal in U.S. eyes has always been what the U.S. says is legal. That's why U.S. torture is legal, for example.

A larger power being drawn into another nation militarily to shore up a regime is a common story. Yet the U.S. and its lackey nations keep professing shock and outrage that Russia would do such a thing. They act as if it's some unprecedented violation of international law, an unconscionable tramping of Ukrainian national sovereignty. Doesn't Russia know that borders are inviolate? (Now remind me: who was it that recently invaded Iraq? And Afghanistan? And before that, Haiti, and Panama, and Grenada, and Lebanon, and on and on? And who goes around the world subverting and overthrowing governments- including the previous one in Ukraine? I think it was that nation located about 7,000 miles away from Ukraine, not the one bordering it that is currently the object of Western opprobrium. Oh, excuse me, when referring to the U.S. and its Eurolackeys, I'm supposed to say “the international community.” Okay, “the opprobrium of the international community,” just minus Africa, Asia, and Latin America, in other words, the homelands of 90% of humanity.)

There was one more thing I wanted to say. There's a little bit of a parallel with the U.S. and “South” Vietnam, and Russia and the Ukrainian separatists and their newly declared Republic. The U.S. got drawn in by stages to shore up a client regime, because the client regime was too weak to stand on its own. In the Vietnam case, the regime lacked the support of its own citizens. In the case of Ukraine, my sense is opinion is divided in eastern Ukraine. Some support the new republic. Some support a unified Ukraine. But many, perhaps most, just want the violence and destruction to end. They want a return to something like normal life.

Also the “South” Vietnamese fascist military dictators were not mere U.S. puppets and thus occasionally created complications for the U.S. This is also the case with the Ukraine separatists and Russia. [2]

Of course, while there are parallels with the U.S. in Vietnam, there are important differences.

One very large difference is that Ukraine is an important country to Russia, on its border, with a geostrategically vital Russian naval base in the Crimean peninsula, whereas Vietnam was a country where the U.S. historically had NO strategic interest or ties, and which is located literally on the opposite side of the globe from the U.S. The U.S. still insisted on imposing its will on Vietnam.

So there's one thing that is exactly the same in both situations: the U.S. was and is a hyper-aggressive empire that insists on dominating every square inch of the planet it possibly can.

If certain Western imperialists get their way, NATO will escalate the conflict. Belligerent perma-hawks in the U.S. and Europe have been beating the drums for months to send military aid to the Kiev cabal, and military forces to other countries in proximity to Russia like the Baltics and Poland. Just today the BBC “World Service” (a global radio arm of the British government propaganda network) put on an armchair militarist from Jane's Defense Weekly to loudly shill for military intervention. He said NATO was formed precisely for such a situation, to “defend Europe from Russian aggression.” (Actually it was formed as an anti-Soviet alliance.) When the BBC host pointed out that Ukraine is not a member of NATO, he brushed that off with some verbal parry- I forget his exact words, but it was specious. Guys like him are never fazed by facts or logic that refuge their arguments. (Later U.S. government radio propaganda network NPR similarly put on some “expert” from a “think” tank to beat his little war drum too.)

If the U.S. and its Eurolackeys refuse to cease their tug-of-war with Russia over Ukraine, you better fasten your seatbelts. We're in for a wild ride.

1] An example of obnoxious U.S./Western propaganda was aired at 1pm Washington time by NPR: “NATO is accusing Russia of drastically escalating its war with Ukraine...” defining the Kiev regime as “Ukraine.” Just as the Kiev side are referred to as “the Ukrainians” and the separatists are “pro-Russian separatists” and NOT Ukrainians. Even though they are. This habitual propagandistic nomenclature is followed undeviatingly by U.S. and Western media, marching in lockstep behind U.S. imperialist foreign policy.

One of few visible dissenters inside the U.S. establishment from its propaganda barrage has been Professor John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago. A self-described “conservative,” ten-year military veteran, and friend of the late imperialist Harvard academic and Vietnam war criminal Samuel “Mad Dog” Huntington, Mearsheimer is a “political scientist” of the “realist” school of international relations. (“Mad Dog” is the sobriquet other American imperialists in Vietnam bestowed on Huntington, so you can imagine how bad he was. He also wrote a notorious paper, “The Crisis of Democracy,” on the need to beat back the American populace and keep them out of policy-making and decision-making.) Videos of Mearsheimer's appearances are on youtube.com, including an appearance on the government and corporate funded “Public Broadcasting System” “news” show, the “Newshour,” where he went head to head with an unreconstructed aggressive American imperialist academic. He also just published an article in Foreign Affairs, the publication of the “Council on Foreign Relations,” a sort of shadow State Department where elite poohbahs hang out between their government gigs. [“Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin,” Foreign Affairs, September 2014.] See also “Cross Talk 28 April . Cohen and Mearsheimer discuss Ukraine,” RT, on youtube.com, for the views of two academics who take objective views of the Ukraine situation, as opposed to the U.S.-chauvinist-centric view predominant in Western media and among elites.

2] The most notorious example of “South” Vietnamese rulers making trouble for the U.S. government was in 1968, when the Lyndon Johnson regime was negotiating a peace agreement with the “North” Vietnamese, and the traitor Richard Nixon, running for president, secretly told the “South” Vietnamese fascist generals to sabotage any deal, since he planned to continue the war. Nixon was elected president that November only because the CIA assassinated the prospective Democratic party presidential nominee, Robert Kennedy, in June. They also assassinated Martin Luther King, Jr., in April, which also aided Nixon by prompting black riots in numerous cities, directly feeding into Nixon's “law and order” propaganda theme, code for “repress the blacks.” White Americans in 1968 were even more racist and fearful of the oppressed African-American population than they are now. The support among whites for increased repression of blacks whenever blacks rebel or even apply legal political pressure is called “backlash” in U.S. political discourse.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

A patrol of ten- count 'em, TEN!- Russian paratroopers has been captured inside Ukraine by Kiev regime forces. The Kiev cabal claims they were captured inside Ukraine in the Donetsk region. The Kiev regime's military says they were nabbed around Amvrosiivka, a town near the Russian border. Russia says they accidentally strayed over the border. The BBC asserts that in televised footage of the captives, some of the prisoners griped about being used as “cannon fodder” and fighting someone else's war. (Boy, if those are the attitudes of Russian elite troops, they need better-motivated troops! Contrast that with the gung-ho fanaticism of elite U.S. “special forces” killers.)

This looks like a typically clumsy Russian move. The soldiers were apparently duped by their superiors, never a good idea for creating high morale. According to Western media accounts, videos of the captives say they were falsely told they were going on a “training exercise,” then stripped of military I.D.s and cellphones and sent into Ukraine instead. [1]

Still no sign of all those “Russian tanks” the Kiev satrapy keeps saying are flooding into Ukraine. One has to wonder, if Russia is sending so many armored columns into Ukraine, where are they? And why are the separatists losing, and Donetsk and Luhansk being reduced to rubble by the regime's artillery fire? The British Guardian newspaper however claims to have seen Russian armored personnel carriers and trucks cross into Ukraine two weeks ago. (That is, today they claim to have seen them two weeks ago.)

Petro O. Poroshenko, the Candyman Billionaire president of western Ukraine, is doing a Bashir al-Assad number on a smaller scale, waging war against the civilian population of “his own” country, as even the stray New York Times article reporting on the artillery bombardment of the east, and the resulting civilian deaths, wounded, destruction and hardship, makes clear. What kind of “leader” lays siege to cities in “his own” country? At this moment, he is pounding the city of Novoazovsk with heavy artillery shelling, something I found only on a Canadian website and that British and U.S. media have so far blacked out, even though it was an Associated Press story, and all the establishment media organs subscribe to the AP. [2]

The hawkish NATO secretary general and U.S. stooge, former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, (who over the years has consistently brayed an even more aggressively imperialist line than his U.S. masters) has taken the occasion of the Kiev regime's capture of the ten Russian soldiers to announce that NATO will send forces to bases on Russia's borders. Intriguingly, he says that divisions within NATO over this idea will be settled in an upcoming meeting next week, and it will be decided to deploy to Poland and the Baltics, countries salivating at the prospect of NATO military forces on their soil. It seems that France, Italy, and Spain all oppose the plan, but apparently the U.S. and UK plan on bludgeoning them into line. Germany meanwhile is sitting on the fence- a familiar position for them. (I sure hope that fence is well-padded; the Krauts spend an awful lot of time sitting on it!) Despite the fact that a formal decision has yet to be agreed to by the NATO members, Rasmussen describes it as a done deal. Apparently his U.S. masters have decided, and expects that after some squawking, the Eurolackeys will all line up obediently behind it, as usual.

And there's more.

Seizing this opportunity to promote his aggressively militaristic agenda, Rasmussen apparently wants to gird for combat against Russia:

"We will adopt what we call a readiness action plan with the aim to be able to act swiftly in this completely new security environment in Europe. We have something already called the NATO response force whose purpose is to be able to be deployed rapidly if needed. Now it's our intention to develop what I would call a spearhead within that response force at very, very, high readiness.

"In order to be able to provide such rapid reinforcements you also need some reception facilities in host nations. So it will involve the pre-positioning of supplies, of equipment, preparation of infrastructure, bases, headquarters. The bottom line is you will in the future see a more visible NATO presence in the east." [Emphases added.]

Rasmussen went on to insist, as he has been doing for years, that NATO members have to spend more money on their militaries (in the midst of depressions in Spain and Greece, recessions in the rest of Europe, and continuing insidious attacks on social welfare programs throughout Europe). A relentless promoter of an aggressive militarism, using NATO as a vehicle, Rasmussen summoned six European newspapers to lay all this on them.

Oh, and get this. Foghorn Rasmussen says “We have to face the reality that Russia does not consider NATO a partner.” Gee, what is WRONG with those Russians? Doesn't consider NATO a partner? Sure it is! Same as the Mafia is “partners” with legitimate businesses they shake down for “protection” money.

Did Rasmussen actually think he could con Russia into thinking a hostile military alliance was its buddy? The man takes the cake. He also said: “Russia is a nation that unfortunately for the first time since the second world war has grabbed land by force. Obviously we have to adapt to that." [3]

Guess he never heard of Israel's conquests of land in 1967. Or Saddam Hussein's invasion and annexation of Kuwait in 1990. (I could probably come up with other examples with some research. But these are infamous and well-known.) What a dishonest jackass.

1] The New York Times described a Kiev regime interrogation video of the Russian soldiers thusly: “'Everything was a lie. There were no drills here,' one of the captured Russians, who identified himself as Sergey A. Smirnov, told a Ukrainian interrogator. He said he and other Russians from an airborne unit in Kostroma, in central Russia, had been sent on what was described initially as a military training exercise but later turned into a mission into Ukraine. After having their cellphones and identity documents taken away, they were sent into Ukraine on vehicles stripped of all markings, Mr. Smirnov said.” “Clouding Talks, Ukraine Says It Captured Russian Troops,” NY Times, 8/26/14.

Why would you try to dupe unprepared and unbriefed soldiers into going on a sensitive mission requiring stealth? Hardly evidence of fearsome military competence, as unreconstructed NATO Cold Warrior Anders Fogh Rasmussen describes Russian military capabilities in a propaganda harangue he unleashed on the reporters from the six European newspapers he summoned to endure it, footnoted in [3] below. Bizarrely, the Guardian sees it this way: “If western leaders have been surprised and also impressed by the sudden display of Russian military prowess, Ukraine, by contrast, is in a pitiful condition militarily, according to NATO officials.” (Also footnote 3.) Sounds like “Western leaders” are in their accustomed Cold War mode of threat-exaggeration to justify their own imperialist aggression and squandering of trillions of dollars on military spending. Old habits die hard, I guess.

The Russian army is a pathetic chain gang of abused, demoralized conscripts, and Russia is a semi-Third World nation with severe economic problems and a shrinking population wracked by alcoholism and disease, whose wealthy elites can't seem to transfer their money out of the country fast enough. They are responsible for much of the boom in London real estate for example, and a share in Manhattan too.

2] “Ukraine crisis: Putin, Poroshenko meet in Minsk amid border violence,” CBC, 8/26/14. Yet an unnamed unnamed NATO asshole in Kiev is quoted in the Guardian (footnote 3) saying “Their [the Kiev regime's] generals just want to blow everything up. But it's not a shooting war, it's an information war." I think it was a shooting war for the 2,000 eastern Ukrainians killed by Kiev's bombardments, and the several hundred thousand made refugees. “Information war” is code for lying, distortion, and dishonesty. And Yes, the Russians haven't been completely honest either. But they've been a lot more honest than the U.S.-bloc has been, and their position is far more legitimate.

President vs. President! Vladimir "Judo Master" Putin of Russia faces offagain Petro "Candyman" Poroshenko of Ukraine in a face-to-face
competitive handshake to see who can make who blink first. Minsk, Belarus.

Monday, August 25, 2014

Almost daily now, the Kiev cabal that seized power in Ukraine with the connivance and backing of the U.S. and its Eurolackeys, the EU, accuses Russia of sending tanks and other military vehicles into Ukraine. They also keep claiming that Russia is firing artillery rounds from Russia into Ukraine.

Russia just as routinely denies it. U.S. media keeps blaring the Kiev regime's accusations, unskeptically, and then appends the Kremlin's denials. Since in the U.S. media scenario the Kiev regime are the Good Guys, and Russia the Bad Guys, guess who the public is expected to believe? We're also told constantly about Russia “invading” Ukraine, “destabilizing” Ukraine, and “annexing” Crimea. (It was a reunification voted for in a referendum by the residents there with over 90% approval.)

Here's the dog that doesn't bark: the U.S. and NATO. With their global surveillance system, they would know for sure if Russian military columns were entering Ukraine, day or night. Through satellite and electronic communications surveillance, just to mention two things, there is no way Russia could do it without the knowledge of the U.S.

So how come the U.S., NATO, and the Eurolackeys have remained silent about the Kiev satrapy's assertions? Surely they'd be screeching if the allegations were true.

The U.S. media never mentions the failure of their own government to confirm the alarms sounded by the Boys Crying Wolf (or Bear) in Kiev.

This proves two things: 1) the Kiev cabal's charges of Russian tanks and etc. entering Ukraine are false, and 2) the U.S. media is deliberately misleading the American (and overseas) public, trying to trick them into believing something they know is false. (Gee, what's new? Ever hear of the Kennedy assassinations? Yellow Rain? The Plot to Kill the Pope? And maybe 500,000 other things.)

The nominally independent U.S. government radio propaganda network NPR did it again today at noon, Washington, D.C. time (where they are based), stating uncritically and completely unskeptically the latest Kiev cabal accusation of Russian-tanks-have-entered-Ukraine, followed by the Russian denial (years of Cold War agitprop from right after World War II conditioned the American public to never believe anything “Russia” says), and ending with a slam at the Russian aid truck convoy that recently took supplies to the besieged city of Luhansk, the NPR propaganda (from Moscow) calling it “illegal,” and reporting Moscow's announced intention to send a second aid convoy. (NPR thus echoes U.S. government attacks on the convoys as “illegal,” outrageous “violations of sovereignty,” and blah blah. God forbid people being killed by “their own” government in their homes should get food, water, and sleeping bags. Not when that government is a Western client state, that is.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

The Islamonazi terrorists of the self-styled “Islamic State” are currently attempting the genocide of Shia Turkomen in Iraq. Food, water, and medical supplies are dwindling in the town of Amile. Farmers in the surrounding towns were driven into this village by the “Islamic State” terrorists, who previously murdered 159 civilians in the town with a car bomb. Branded “apostates” by the Islamonazis, the Turkomens are one of numerous groups in Iraq (and Syria) slated for extermination by IS.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the top Shiite cleric in Iraq, is calling for airdrops of relief supplies.

“The West,” specifically the U.S. and its UK parrot- er, “partner”- have a moral obligation to answer the call. (Not that morality ever guides their decisions, only cold, ruthless, imperialist power calculations do.) Those are the nations that destabilized Iraq. The U.S. launched the Islamofascist movement with its anti-Soviet crusade in Afghanistan under the Carter and Reagan regimes, starting before the 1979 Soviet invasion, as Zbigniew Brzezinski, a violently Russian-hating Pole and Carter's “National Security Adviser,” has bragged. The the U.S.' pals, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, are the sources and supporters of the Islamofascist movement, which they in fact created, a Frankenstein's Monster which has now gotten out of their control.

The U.S. consistently does either too much or too little. First it stuck its claws into Afghanistan to prevent the social progress the Soviets tried to impose on that pre-feudal society. Then it abandoned it, not caring what happened next, once the Soviets threw in the towel. That left the country to degenerate into warlordism, resulting in the destruction of Kabul by competing warlords, and ultimately the rise of the Taliban.

In Iraq, Bush II committed naked aggression in violation of international law, cycled through a series of puppet governments, then split. His regime created a perfect opening for U.S. arch enemy and bete noire to go in Iran, which had been denied territory under Hussein, and exert great influence now that fellow Shiites had supplanted the Sunni minority who had dominated during Hussein's bloodthirsty rule. Leaving a mess for his successor Obama to try and clean up, when the Bush-appointed prime minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to grant U.S. troops immunity under Iraqi law so they could commit crimes with impunity as a condition of a continued U.S. troop “presence,” Obama pulled out and bragged about fulfilling a campaign pledge to “end the Iraq war.” (I think he broke every other promise, including one he broke before he was even elected, namely to “filibuster” a bill granting immunity from civil suits to telecoms that had participated in a warrantless massive NSA spying program. He didn't even vote against the bill, but voted FOR it. He's proven to be a serial double-crosser.)

In Syria, where the U.S. had a whole year to aid the uprising against the awful Assad tyranny, the Obama regime dithered, which ultimately allowed Islamofascists to move in and become dominant. Now three years on, it will be very difficult to uproot them from there. Assad played with fire by leaving the Islamofascists alone and concentrating on crushing the “moderate” original opposition, who also had to content with attacks from the Islamofascists. This played into Assad's propaganda line that he was “fighting terrorism,” and put the original rebels on the ropes.

Boy, that's rich. This from the people who overthrew the previous elected president of Ukraine. A president who even agreed to early elections (which he would have probably lost, but I guess the U.S. bloc and its Ukrainian front men and the fascist cop-killing rioters couldn't wait) in a futile attempt to appease foreign-backed coupists.

According to NATO, Russia sending food, water, sleeping bags, and electrical generators to the besieged citizens of the city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine can “only deepen the crisis in the region.” The “crisis” being that the U.S.-bloc is meeting resistance in its takeover of Ukraine. The U.S. Lackeydom declares the humanitarian aid truck convoy a pretext for intervention.

The Kiev satrapy was even more over the top, screeching that the aid convoy constituted an “invasion.” (The satrapies in Kiev have been yelling “invasion” every time Russia so much as looks at them, it seems. Apparently they're very hot on getting NATO to send in military forces.)

After the Kiev regime kept the convoy of over 200 trucks cooling its heels at the border for days, the Russians apparently lost patience and proceeded to drive to Luhansk. Most of the trucks have already returned to Russia after unloading their cargo, the BBC reports. The Kiev satrapy is grumbling that they only inspected 37 of the trucks at the border, where they had detained them for days. (Hoping to starve out the inhabitants of Luhansk, perhaps. If they wanted to look for hidden arms and ammo so badly, they had plenty of opportunity to do so. And food is perishable.) With a thousand mile border between Ukraine and Russia, there are plenty of spots Russia can pass military supplies through without interception by the Kiev satrapy regime. So they wouldn't pick a border crossing guarded by regime loyalists to try and sneak ordnance through. Furthermore, Russia tried to get the International Red Cross to oversee the aid convoy. The Red Cross went AWOL, perhaps on the orders of Western regimes- most likely the self-appointed global master, the U.S. The official reason was that shelling in the area made the trip too dangerous for them. (The BBC said 37 trucks were inspected by the Kiev regime's guards, the New York Times says 34. The trucks have already been unloaded and drove back to Russia.)

Donetsk and Luhansk are both being shelled and bombarded by the Kiev regime. The BBC carried an eyewitness report from a Vice reporter who visited Luhansk that the Kiev regime's tactics are heavy and “indiscriminate” artillery shelling to avoid direct ground combat. Two million people live in the two cities.

Jose Manuel Barroso, a member of the European political apparatchik-royalty class who currently gets to plant his butt on the cushy seat of head of the European Commission, promised 2 million Euros for the 2 million besieged inhabitants- a cynical, empty gesture, only made to counter the Russian relief convoy. (Ukraine's total population is about 46 million.) Meanwhile today's New York Times website spins Russia's aid caravan as just a P.R. move, in the larger context of a zero sum competition between Russia and the U.S. bloc, a context in which they and the rest of the Western political and propaganda elites see everything with Russia these days (while incessantly accusing Russia of “restarting the Cold War” and Putin of having imperial ambitions). If Russia wants a friendly nation on its very border, that is seen as “expansionist.” Hysterical articles are penned by imperialist blatherers foreseeing Russian invasions of the Baltics and even Poland. (I'm not making this up. WHO is stuck in Cold War thinking? This is straight out of the Red Menace propaganda playbook from the 1950s.)

Oh, speaking of “violation(s) of sovereign,” who was it that destabilized Ukraine in the first place? And invaded Panama? And Grenada? And Haiti, numerous times? And Lebanon? And Cambodia? And Iraq and Afghanistan?

Who overthrew the democratically-elected governments of Iran and Guatemala and Brazil and Chile and on and on and replaced them with fascist tyrannies? Who sicced a terrorist army on Nicaragua? Who has subjected Cuba to non-stop sabotage, terrorism, and assassination attempts on the head of state? Who arranged false flag snipers to gun people down in the streets of Caracas, Venezuela? Who was it who overthrew the government of Australia?

Among the incessantly-reiterated Israeli propaganda lines blared at the global public by that nation's political bosses, military figures, official mouthpieces, and foreign political and media lackeys from the president of the United States on down, are 1) that Israel goes to great lengths to avoid civilian Palestinian casualties; 2) Hamas uses civilians as “human shields” [so don't attack them at those times, Israel! But it's a canard anyway]; 3) all civilian casualties are Hamas' fault anyway, because Hamas is making Israel do this [Hamas “made” Israel murder four children playing football on an otherwise deserted beach? Hamas “made” Israel bomb hospitals and a home for the disabled? Hamas “made” Israel bombard seven UN refuge centers after being told literally dozens of times by the UN where they were located? Hamas “made” Israel target ambulances and kill medics, bomb the power plant, bomb the water treatment centers?]; and 4) Hamas WANTS civilian casualties to use as “propaganda,” as Netanyahu himself said on a platform helpfully provided by CNN, with the egregious Wolf Blitzer. Many U.S. propagandists have long promoted this line, such as the vicious reactionary Charles Krauthammer. [1]

Well, all that unfortunately does square with this televised statement by the chief Israeli Army spokesman, Brigadier General Motti “The Murderer” Almoz, the evening of August 22:

“We are currently attacking in the Gaza Strip very powerfully and will continue to do so in the coming hours.” (Hours, days, weeks, perhaps months.) “Every citizen [sic- in fact the prisoners in the Gaza concentration camp are stateless] in the Gaza Strip who has in proximity to him or his home weaponry, we view him to be a legitimate target.” The PERSON is a “legitimate target” just for being near alleged weaponry! Talk about guilt by association! This takes it to a new extreme. [2]

Sounds like deliberate targeting of civilians to me. If there is “weaponry” “in proximity,” we will blow you up. Just how far away constitutes “proximity”? And what should the million and a half Palestinians imprisoned in the Gaza concentration camp do? Search every building and basement “in proximity?” to their homes? Look for hidden tunnels? And what about when they walk to market, or work, or school? Should they search “in proximity” all along their routes of travel, just in case Israel THINKS there are “weapons” hidden somewhere? Almoz The Awful did say “in proximity to him OR his home.” So if you're walking or riding down the street and Israel thinks there are “weapons” nearby, its your own fault if you get blown up. Even if you're a child. (Those 250 factories and business plants Israel blew up- they were all near “weaponry”? I don't think so.)

Almoz went on to threaten continued bombardment “until quiet arrives.” That is, the Palestinians have to submit meekly to their fate and not resist in the slightest. Just as Obama, Holder, Jay Nixon and the rest of the U.S. “authorities” want “calm” in Ferguson, MO, after the latest police execution of an unarmed black male for no reason other than racism and the need to “show who's boss,” meaning to impose repressive authoritarian rule on an oppressed racial minority.

1] Netanyahu in particular has repeated the "we take great efforts to avoid hitting civilians" line every chance he gets. One of his close henchmen, Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. (who was born in Miami Beach, Florida, and thus is an American citizen), has so far set the record for insufferable chutzpah with his demand that Israel be awarded a Nobel Peace Price for how it has conducted the current slaughter in the Gaza concentration camp. Dermer wrote a book which he had the nerve to title "The Case for Democracy." Something he obviously doesn't believe in, since he is totally committed to subjugating Palestinians and depriving them of all rights. Of course, if you believe Palestinians are subhuman there's no contradiction, just as the U.S. "founders" can declare "all men are created equal," and babble about "inalienable rights," while owning slaves. As Africans too were regarded as an inferior species and not human, once again, no contradiction.

2] “Executions in Gaza Are a Warning to Spies,” New York Times, August 23, 2014, page A10, paragraph 12. In fact it was just one paragraph buried deep in the middle of that article, which dealt with Hamas executing suspected Palestinian collaborators with Israel. Such a bloodcurdling threat as Almoz issued merits a story of its own- and had Hamas made a similar threat, you KNOW the Times and other Western media would loudly blare the news, instead of hiding it and making it just a passing mention.

The public executions were apparently in reaction to the day earlier Israeli assassinations of three top Hamas leaders. (Israel for years has been decapitating Palestinian resistance organizations. Israel has spent years going around the world murdering Fatah, Black September, and PLO people, for example. And for years they've been assassinating Hamas people. After decades of assassination as policy, Israel still isn't willing to consider alternatives, such as co-existence with Palestinians, obeying international law and ceasing the illegal colonization of territory it conquered in 1968, or obeying the UN mandate of 1947 that opened the door to the creation of Israel, which also mandated a Palestinian state. (The Times reported that the executed alleged collaborators had been arrested before the current Israeli attacks on Gaza.)

Aside from the Hamas men Israel just killed, they also bumped off another dozen or so Palestinians, including children, and wounded over 40 in a single bombing of a house in Gaza City. A mortar fired by Hamas, presumably, killed a four year old child in Israel, bring the death toll in the past two months to 4 civilians in Israel (one was an imported Thai serf) and 64 Israeli soldiers, all of whom were killed in the ground invasion ordered by Netanyahu. This is the third full-scale Israeli war on the trapped captives of the Gaza concentration camp since 2008, when Israel invaded and bombarded, as they did again in 2012 and now. In this offensive, so far over 2,100 Palestinians have been killed, including about 500 children, thousands more have been wounded, some maimed for life, including a young girl paralyzed from the neck down whose entire immediate family was slaughtered. We won't be hearing her story in the U.S. establishment media, I can guarantee you. Too “anti-Israeli” and “anti-Semitic,” Or maybe too “self-hating Jewishy.”

Friday, August 15, 2014

Former Iraqi dictator Nouri al-Maliki, the U.S.-installed successor to Saddam Hussein (who was himself helped by the U.S. for many years, which aided his extermination of leftists and Kurds, his war on Iran, his gas attacks, and more), practically had to be dragged out the door, but has finally left under his own power, more or less.

Let’s review some history. The U.S. supported Saddam Hussein, one of the numerous horrendously brutal dictators, complete with baroque House of Horrors torture chambers, that the U.S. has supported through the 20th (and now 21st) century. The CIA gave him names of people to exterminate when he was consolidating his power. The U.S. allowed companies to sell the precursor chemicals for poison gases. During Hussein’s war of aggression against Iran (U.S. media routinely blacks out the fact that Iraq invaded Iran, with an eye to stealing territory and oil) the U.S. provided targeting information, including for gas attacks on Iranian soldiers. When Hussein gassed Kurdish villages, not only didn’t the U.S. condemn it, but the “Defense Intelligence Agency,” a Pentagon version of the CIA created by war criminal Robert McNamara, issued an “intelligence report” pretending to “prove” that IRAN had gassed those villages! (So you see how cynical it was when later on the Bush II regime fabricated excuses to invade Iraq, some reasons given were the gassing of Kurds, the aggression against neighbors, the tortures, etc.)

After the invasion of 2003, the Bush regime plan was to hand the country over to the embezzler/con artist/disinformation purveyor Ahmed Chalabi. That proved nonviable, so Bush asked the invariably incompetent Zalmay Khalilzad for a name, someone to be “prime minister.” An exiled conniver named Nouri al-Maliki was Khalilzad’s answer. (The fact that Bush installed Maliki in power is also taboo to mention in the U.S. media, for some reason. Too “partisan,” I guess! Funny, the Democrats don’t mention it either! Maybe they enjoy being political punching bags.)

Now Maliki is being blamed (mostly correctly) for the present crisis in Iraq, due to his extreme sectarianism, political war on non-Shiites, and dictatorial rule.

His last few acts were using his air force to bomb Sunni cities, which of course led directly to the rise of those Islamonazis who now call themselves the “Islamic State.” [1] When it came to actual fighting, his army proved unwilling to risk their lives for him, fleeing from a few thousand ISIS gunmen and providing them the gifts of U.S.-supplied armored vehicles and artillery with GPS targeting capability. (That’s what happens when you put incompetent cronies in charge of the military and steal the soldiers’ salaries.) Then he threatened to sue the new president for failing to name a prime minister (Maliki himself) fast enough. When the president named someone else, Maliki called it “unconstitutional” and had his gunmen deploy in a menacing fashion. But with everyone deserting him- his own party, the U.S., Iran too- he finally was able to read the gigantic neon sign on the wall that said “STEP DOWN NOW MALIKI!”

He had been demanding a large contingent of bodyguards and cash to leave. We’ll see how that shakes out.

Maybe he can go into exile in Iran. Or in Crawford, Texas. George Bush has a ranch there. Bush can put him up.

So long, Nouri. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out. On second thought, let it hit you!

The very charismatic Nouri "Sourpuss" al-Maliki

Now after the Humpty-Dumpty nation of Iraq had a great fall, can all the Emperor Obama’s jets and drones, and all his Special Forces, put Humpty back together again?

I wouldn’t bet on it.

1] I’m calling them Islamonazis since they are genocidal, as they have demonstrated now in Iraq against the Yazidis, Christians, and others, who they have made clear they will physically exterminate if they don’t “convert to Islam.” They’ve taken things down a rung, lower into hell, than their predecessors, al-Qaeda in Iraq, which itself was a step down from al-Qaeda. Recall that Osama bin Laden criticized them for their wanton murders of Shiites and other Sunnis, but they ignored his instructions to stop, which led to their demise. Ultimately these “IS” scum will meet the same fate, because people will be forced to fight them just to survive. Like the Nazis, there is no co-existence possible with such mad dogs.

Their boss has just crowned himself Master of All Muslims, with the aim of expanding the borders of his “Caliphate” to all corners of the earth. These murderous goons have gone through a number of name changes (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS) before arriving at “Islamic State,” IS. Notice they no longer limit themselves to a particular geographic area.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

In a challenge to the Kiev regime’s assault on its “own” people in the east, Russia is sending food and other relief supplies to besieged civilians in the city of Luhansk. The Kiev cabal has vowed to block it at the border. This is occurring in the context of a months-long campaign of bombing and shelling of eastern Ukraine, in particular the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, including shelling a hospital twice. Currently a humanitarian crisis is looming.

The Western-installed satrapy regime in Kiev, Ukraine, has now killed a total of around 2,000 civilians in the eastern half of “its” country, The death toll doubled in the past week, reports The New York Times, a paper that has editorially gone all-in supporting the U.S. coup, painting Russia in editorial after editorial as the Bad Guy that “annexed” Crimea, is “destabilizing” Ukraine, and demanding that it stand down, quash the rebellion/self-determination forces, and abandon the east to its western-ordained fate.

Referring to the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, the Times reports that:

“Shelling there and elsewhere in the region by the Ukrainian forces has taken a heavy toll on civilians, with the death toll in the war doubling in the last week to more than 2,000, the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported on Wednesday.

“Conditions in Luhansk, under siege by Ukrainian government forces, are particularly dire. City officials said Tuesday that its 250,000 residents had been living without power, water and a sewage system since Aug. 3, and that only essential food was available.

“Nevertheless, both Kiev and its Western allies have warned that the Russian aid convoy was just a cynical ploy to get much-needed military assistance to rebel fighters in Luhansk, who are running low on ammunition, or — in the worst case — the first step in an invasion of southeastern Ukraine.” [1]

Arseniy P. “Yats” Yatsenyuk, the “prime minister” of Ukraine hand-picked for his post by high-ranking U.S. State department apparatchik Victoria Nuland, ruled out any aid except from the Red Cross. (Of course, the Kiev regime has made it impossible for the Red Cross to enter the region under attack.) [2]

And in a self-described official statement, Arsen Avakov, the interior minister who oversees the Kiev regime’s secret police and regular police, snarled: ““A provocation by the cynical aggressor on our territory is unacceptable,” it apparently being “provocative” to try and relieve a besieged city by providing necessities to the civilian population. (Granted, it wouldn’t be surprising if the armed rebels helped themselves to some of the supplies.)

Of course, there’s an easy solution to the situation: the Kiev regime could stop waging war on the population of the eastern part of Ukraine.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry claims the 260 truck convoy, which left from Moscow and as of yesterday was idling 200 miles (about 334 kilometers) from the Ukrainian border, is hauling 2,000 metric tons of supplies, including 400 tons of cereals, 100 tons of sugar, 62 tons of baby food, 54 tons of medical supplies, 12,300 sleeping bags and 69 generators. The Kiev regime is all but accusing Moscow of secreting military supplies in the cargo.

The Kiev regime insists that all 260 trucks will have to be unloaded at the border and reloaded onto other trucks- a massive undertaking. (No word on who would supply replacement trucks more to the Kiev cabal’s liking. Presumably not Russia. The regime surely doesn’t have 260 spare cargo trucks sitting around, even if they were inclined to break their own blockade of Luhansk.)

In an obviously political countermove, the Kiev cabal has suddenly added false promises to its rhetoric, claiming it will break its own siege by sending its own aid convoy. (I wouldn’t bet any money on that actually happening if I were you. It’s hard to imagine they would deliver supplies to areas under “rebel” control. (It might be more accurate to call them self-determinationists, although that term doesn’t deal with the complication of Russian nationals’ involvement in the autonomy/separatist movement, especially in leadership roles. I certainly don’t question the fact of Russian state involvement. But whose border is Ukraine on? Russia’s? Or the U.S.’s? And who has an absolutely geostrategically vital naval base there? So who arguably has greater interests there? Oh, by the way, there are plenty of ethnic Russians who speak Russian in Ukraine. How many Americans are citizens there? Remind me again.)

The U.S. subalterns of the “European Union” are meeting on Friday, August 15th, to plot their next move in all this.

Here’s something awkward for the U.S. imperialist bloc, which could explain why the NY Times relegated it to the very last paragraph of the aforementioned article:

“Since the conflict erupted in March, Russia has argued that Kiev does not respect the needs or interests of the mainly Russian speaking population of southeastern Ukraine, and the confrontation over the aid convoy risked confirming Moscow’s point.”

Yeah, that’s a “risk,” alright. But given the power of the Western media, the risk is minimal. Besides, apparently the U.S. empire has a burning need to absorb Ukraine into its bloc, or at least its sphere of dominance. There’s no rational reason for this, no geopolitical need, just a mindless imperialist compulsion to achieve hegemony over the entire planet, a madness that even self-described “conservative” U.S. “political scientist” John Mearsheimer, a prominent academic at the University of Chicago and ten year military veteran, has repeatedly described and criticized as overreach. (His criticism is pragmatic, not moral. There are youtube.com videos of his public talks.) [3]

2] See “U.S. Enlisted UN Stooges in Ukraine Subversion“ for the infamous phone call between Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, a career U.S. imperialist with prior coup experience, in which she designates “Yats,” as she calls Yatsenyuk, as prime-minister-to-be. This smoking gun evidence no longer exists as far as U.S. media and government are concerned, despite the fact that when it was revealed, the U.S. State Department didn’t deny its authenticity, choosing instead to sneer at Russian perfidy and sleaziness in intercepting and revealing it. (I’m referring to top State Department flack Jen Psaki’s official comments when confronted on the matter. To the best of my knowledge, no other U.S. official has deigned to publicly recognize the existence of the damning phone call.) After confirming in a backhanded manner the recording’s authenticity (“I didn’t say it was inauthentic”) she says the release “is a new low in Russian tradecraft.”

Here’s an excerpt from Psaki’s press conference in which she’s questioned about the Nuland-Pyatt conspiracy call. At 4:50 in the video she calls it “a new low in Russian tradecraft." Psaki had the gall to brazenly deny to reporters that the phone call contradicted U.S. public claims that it was leaving it up to the Ukrainians to determine their own government.

Notice how Psaki employs the principle of the best defense is a good offense. She doesn’t even bother denying the authenticity of the call, instead brushing the matter aside with supercilious contempt. Brilliant move, Jen! If you ever lose your job at State, you’d make a great dominatrix. Her subordinate State Department flack, Marie Harf, takes after Psaki in her insufferable and unrelenting high-handedness. (Just watch these creeps on youtube.com if you need proof.) For some reason, the State Department flacks are a lot more arrogant and condescending to the media than are their White House counterpart flacks. I haven’t had time to analyze why that is. One possible explanation is that the White House flacks get a lot more media attention, so the image they project is more important. State Department mouthpieces apparently feel free to be as obnoxious and haughty as they like. Another is that the president is an elected official, plus the head of a political party, which worries about elections, whereas the State Department is totally insulated from any democratic accountability at all, and its head, the Secretary of State, is appointed, not elected.

Victoria Nuland, whose official title is Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, has been called a “neoconservative.” In U.S. political parlance that translates as a reactionary within the power structure. Originally the term denoted a small clique of upper caste Jewish reactionaries largely based in New York City and centered around institutions like the rabidly reactionary rag Commentary, a publication of the American Jewish Committee, one of the key centers of organized elite Jewish power in America and a component of Israel’s quasi Fifth Column in the U.S., aka “the pro-Israel lobby.” The word has since bled out to take in various gentiles. The idea was that these people used to be “liberals,” who reacted in revulsion to the anti-Vietnam war movement, the counterculture (“hippies”), and the black “power” movement, which they viewed with fear and hatred. How “liberal” people like Norman “The Frother” Podhoretz, longtime past editor of Commentary, ever actually were, as they allege, is open to dispute, to say the least.

Nuland is married to Robert Kagan, a prominent right-wing imperialist ideologue and co-founder of an aggressively militaristic propaganda mill called “Project for the New American Century,” which promotes U.S. global hegemony. This fountain of imperialist vomit put out a paper called Rebuilding America's Defenses (2000), co-signed by Kagan, his brother Frederick (another right-wing militarist) and their daddy, Donald, yet another reactionary, who squats in a professorship at Yale University, a notorious CIA recruiting ground. Notice two of the three words in the title are extremely dishonest. The U.S. military budget has risen every year since at least 1977, the beginning of the Carter regime. Yet fanatical U.S. militarists are constantly pretending that the U.S. has dismantled its military. As for “Defenses,” of course the U.S. military is offensive and aggressive, with 750 bases outside its national territory, and a two-century-long history of aggression and conquest.

3] To watch a one minute excerpt of a U.S. TV appearance Mearsheimer was allowed, in which he succinctly gives his view of the Ukraine situation, see “Arrogance and Stupidity in Obama Regime Power Grab in Ukraine.” (Dissenters from the U.S. propaganda consensus have been virtually excluded from establishment media.)

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

For several months now, the Western-installed and backed regime in Kiev, headed, appropriately, by a billionaire, has been waging war on the eastern part of the Ukraine. A hospital has been bombed, twice, killing at least one patient. About 1,000 civilians have been killed by artillery shelling and aerial bombardment by the Kiev regime. (All Western outrage has been reserved for the accidental downing of a Malaysian jetliner by the eastern resisters, a plane flying over a known war zone where it had no business being.)

Homes, apartment complexes, and other civilian targets have been relentlessly hit in Kiev's bombardment of the people it claims as subjects in the east. Hundreds of thousands have become refugees.

To avert a humanitarian catastrophe, Moscow is sending a convoy of trucks with relief supplies to the city of Luhansk, where water and electricity have been cut off for days. (The Red Cross hasn't been able to get its act together to help so far.) Predictably, the U.S. bloc sees this as a cover for sneaking in military supplies, and is growling warnings at the Kremlin. But "the West" hasn't offered any help of its own to the besieged people of eastern Ukraine, nor has it lifted a finger to control its new client regime's war crimes, ignoring entreaties by Russian officials to rein in the Kiev regime. One-sided as always, the U.S. media ignores these calls and only reports attacks on Russia by Western government officials. Typical is NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a barking Danish lapdog of U.S. imperialism who is reliably reactionary and militaristic in all matters. This creep sees the relief convoy as a mere cover for a Russian invasion."We see the Russians developing the narrative and the pretext for such an operation under the guise of a humanitarian operation, and we see a military build-up that could be used to conduct such illegal military operations in Ukraine."

Yeah, unlike the "legal" U.S. invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, Haiti, Grenada, Vietnam, Cambodia, Lebanon, Cuba, Mexico, even Canada (1812). This is only a very partial llst.

If "humanitarian intervention" is ok for you guys, Foghorn, how come it's "illegal" if Russia were to do it?

And Russia would actually have two compelling reasons. Ukraine is on their border and is a key strategic interest, and ethnic Russians there obviously need protecting from the quasi-fascist U.S.-installed regime in Kiev that is killing noncombatants and trampling the rights of Russian-speakers.

But Russia has no interests that the U.S. and its lackeys are bound to respect. Just as a black man in America has no rights a white man is bound to respect. I guess that makes Russia a Nigger among Nations.

Friday, August 08, 2014

Hamas, thinking they can force Israel to lift the 8 year long strangulation of Gaza by firing ineffectual rockets and mortars onto Israeli soil, resumed that tactic after a 72 hour ceasefire ended. Although one observer on BBC claimed it was other parties and not Hamas, 33 projectiles were fired- four didn’t even reach Israel, 3 were shot down by the “Iron Dome” anti-rocket system, for which the U.S. Congress just voted another $225 million in additional funding, and the rest wounded one whole Israeli. In “response,” Israel resumed its bombardment with U.S.-supplied weapons and munitions, attacking from land, sea, and air with warplanes, artillery, and gunboats off the coast. They “scored” another dead Palestinian, a 10-year-old boy in a mosque. (What’s the Israeli term for a dead Palestinian child? One less rock-throwing terrorist.)

Now a summary of the preceding 28 day “conflict” or “war” or “fighting,” as the western media likes to euphemise the Israeli assault on the Gazan concentration camp.

[The following is a bit Swiftian, as in Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. I’m not as cold-blooded as the Israeli “strategists” who plot these crimes.]

Let’s do the type of calculus that Netanyahu and his henchmen do.

Israel, apparently because the Israeli military’s own casualty count is rising higher than expected, has announced a withdrawal of their ground forces from the Gaza concentration camp. (Presumably their relentless aerial bombardment will continue.) 64 Israeli soldiers have been killed, along with 2 Israeli Jewish civilians killed early on by rockets fired from Gaza.

27 to 1 kill ratio. Impressive, sure, but nowhere near as impressive as past Israeli kill ratios, which have been as high as hundreds to one- or even 100 to 0, as when Israel shelled the UN’s Qana refugee camp in Lebanon with U.S.-provided anti-personnel artillery shells that shredded the bodies of the people concentrated there.

From the perspective of the scoreboard, Netanyahu would have racked up a more impressive “victory” if he hadn’t launched the ground invasion. Subtract 64 Israeli soldiers killed in the ground invasion, and you’re left with two dead Israeli Jews. (There was also an imported Thai worker, a latter-day serf, killed by a Hamas rocket, or whoever fired the rocket from Gaza.) Let’s generously assume that the invaders killed 400 Palestinians- the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian dead were slain by aerial bombardment, courtesy of free U.S. F-16s and munitions, maybe drones and helicopters, and long-range artillery fire and naval gunboat shelling. So then the score would have been Israel 1,400, Palestinian 2, for a 700:1 kill ratio- far more impressive than 27:1. So in terms of his stats, Netanyahu “shot himself in the foot,” one might vulgarly say, by invading on the ground. (I’ve rounded off the number of Palestinian human beings killed, since an exact number is hard to come by. There are probably corpses buried in rubble that haven’t been discovered- with thousands of homes demolished by Israeli munitions, there must be a considerable number. And of course of the 9,567 wounded, some maimed or crippled for life, ther are those who will ultimately die of their injuries, especially with Israel crippling the medical system in Gaza, not only by bombing the hospitals repeatedly, but by destroying the electrical and water supply systems, and blockading medical supplies from Gaza. Plus, the destruction of a clean water supply will mean death by diseases such as typhus and typhoid, just as happened in Nazi concentration and POW camps. So Netayhayu’s stats will improve, but the ratio will still be about what it is now. Palestinians deaths would have to double for the ratio to even get to 50:1, which is possible with the spread of disease especially.)

10,000 homes destroyed, another 5,000 so badly damaged they are uninhabitable.

So Israel “mowed the lawn,” to use their own cynical, gangland-style terminology.

I guess now they’re trimming the bushes.

…............................................

It seems masochistic to an outsider for Hamas to start up the rocket fire again. All that can do is bring down more suffering on the Palestinians’ heads. But they see their fate as slow strangulation, increasing immiseration, so they have to try to break the blockade. Like a prisoner in solitary going on hunger strike, self-destruction is the only means of resistance left to the Palestinians. Thus they (vainly) hope to prick “the world’s” conscience by the suffering they’re enduring.

But the Jews will tell you, that can take a long time. 2,000 years, maybe?

If only Bavaria had been made the Jewish homeland, in European-U.S. atonement for the Holocaust. That at least would have been just (if impractical).

And there’s an unfortunate side effect to the hunger strike strategy. It adds credence to the sick Zionist propaganda claim put out by the Israeli government (and its U.S. parrots like Bob Schieffer and Charles Krauthammer) that the Palestinians are “forcing” Israel to “kill their children,” in the demented and vicious words of Golda Meir, quoted by Bob Schieffer. Meir-Schieffer did the neat trick of making the murderers of children the victims. The Meir quote is “I can forgive the Palestinians for killing our children. [That’s a lie right there, she couldn’t forgive, but never mind] but I can never forgive them for forcing us [sic] to kill their children.” So “forcing” her to kill Palestinian children is an unforgivable sin against her by the Palestinians! Check out that moral inversion. THEY have done HER wrong! And this is the moral calculus that the redneck reactionary Schieffer of CBS applies to the current situation, taking his cues from Netanyahu and his henchmen, who have proclaimed repeatedly that Hamas is responsible for all the Palestinian deaths.

Actually the Israelis enjoy killing Palestinian children, as they see them as “future terrorists.” More and more, the true attitude of the Israeli elite (and most of the population) has been leaking into public view outside Israel, despite the western media’s assiduous attempts to embargo that reality and present the propaganda picture favored by Israel. So for example we just had Knesset member Ayelet Shaked of the Jewish Home party calling for the murder of Palestinian mothers to prevent them from producing more “snakes” (that is, Palestinian babies).

All this can only happen because the U.S. is Israel’s zombie, Israel’s bitch. Obama rushed more bombs and missiles to Israel to keep up the bombardment, even as he shed a crocodile tear or two over the carnage.

That was the sound of me blowing my own horn. (Hey, I don’t get paid for this, I have to at least get some occasional ego gratification as compensation for my time and effort!)

Back in March, I noted that the notorious boss of the CIA, John “Cutthroat” Brennan, blatantly lied about breaking into and spying on the computers of the staff of the CIA Congressional “overseers,” the people Brennan’s boss and patron, Barack “Trust Me” Obama, reassured everyone keeps an eagle eye on the various secret police agencies and ensured that everything they do is legally kosher. Brennan said that “Nothing could be further from the truth.” I wrote that whenever Brennan used that phrase, it was a one hundred percent guarantee that he was lying. [1]

Well, now the CIA’s own “Inspector General” issued a report confirming that, yes indeed, at least 10 CIA officers broke into the computers of the Congressional “oversight committee” staffers. As a result, Brennan has now “apologized.”

But the CIA criminals won’t be prosecuted for the Federal felonies they committed. The Federal computer crime laws are only used to prosecute political dissidents, freedom fighters, and “common criminals.” They also came in handy in eliminating the activist Aaron Swartz, who was driven to suicide by the threat of a 35 year prison sentence. [2]

Obama’s Department of “Justice,” run by his crony Eric “Due Process Means We Decide to Kill You” Holder, Jr., refused to act on the criminal complaint filed by the Senate Intelligence Committee over the computer hacking and spying. But to show how fair and balanced they are, they also refused to act on the CIA’s criminal complaint against the Congressional committee, claiming they “stole” CIA documents (they didn’t) and they hacked the CIA’s computer system (another lie). Just as well, since that was a false complaint, which the CIA has now magnanimously withdrawn. Oh, by the way, filing a false criminal complaint is a crime- just one more by the CIA, a criminal organization that was set up to as a criminal organization, that is, one that habitually ignores all laws. (Well, they DO need to assassinate people, after all!)

The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne “I Love NSA Spying” Feinstein, was oddly muted in her response, saying almost nothing. No demand for criminal prosecution, no demand that Congress not be surveilled by the CIA, NSA, FBI, and god knows what other U.S. secret police agencies are blackmailing them, J. Edgar Hoover-style.

One big difference between the U.S. and Russia, China, or other nations, is that the political bosses here DO NOT CONTROL THE SECRET POLICE. That creates a very dangerous situation. It means we are all at the mercy of those fascist cutthroats. And these fascist goons have exported their model of secret police political supremacy to Latin America (which is only now recovering, at least in South America, NOT in Central America, whose social and political conditions appear terminal) and to Europe, where the local secret police agencies are basically traitors in thrall to their U.S. secret police masters, with whom they cooperate against their own governments and populations. (Australia too, where the CIA was able to organize the overthrow of the Whitlam government.)

Anyway, Thank You, John “Cutthroat” Brennan, for confirming to the world that I was correct. Not that we needed you to admit it to know you were lying.

Tuesday, August 05, 2014

That would be Senator Patrick Leahy,
Democrat of Vermont, a man who is now pissing on the grave of
Internet activist Aaron Swartz.

Leahy, from his perch in the power seat
of Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, stifles any pro-human
rights legislation that comes along while pretending to be in favor
of it. As a committee chairman, he has the sole power to allow or
deny committee votes on proposed laws that his committee has
jurisdiction over. (By Senate rules legislation usually must pass a
committee vote before the whole Senate can vote on it. And of course
the House of Representatives has to vote for the proposed law, called
a “bill,” also.)

Leahy generally manages to sabotage
meaningful reform. After every “failure” or “defeat,” he
shrugs and blames Republicans, or makes various other excuses. One
way he likes to sabotage attempts to roll back some of the repressive
police state powers of the U.S. is by parrying them with his own
legislative proposals which are simulacrums of reform bills with
misleading titles, designed to preempt and thus block real reform.
[1]

Leahy has played the key role
in preventing any easing of the horribly oppressive “USA PATRIOT
Act,” for example, co-opting and neutralizing reform efforts with
his own sham “reform” proposals.

And now Leahy is spitting on the
memory of Aaron Swartz.

Leahy’s latest crime against human
rights is typical of his sneaky modus operandi. Under the
guise of “reforming” repressing U.S. computer “crime” law,
Leahy is doubling the already vicious punishments for crossing
the U.S. government or major institution using a digital device.
Apparently he doesn’t feel that the law that Federal prosecutors
used to drive political activist Aaron Swartz to suicide is
sufficiently draconian. Leahy is fanatically dedicated to increasing
U.S. repression. This is the fifth time in nine years he has
attempted to make the already extremely punitive U.S. “computer
crime” laws even more savage. And behind Leahy is the Number One
culprit in the increase in U.S. repressiveness of the past decade,
Barack Obama. [2]

Leahy gave his proposed legislation the
nice and virtuous sounding name of “The Personal Data Privacy and
Security Act.” Who could be against that? As with the “USA
PATRIOT ACT,” a law with such a morally righteous title could not
possibly be opposed by any Right-Thinking Person. (The names given
these laws are not just intended to obfuscate their true effect, as
the “Bank Secrecy Act” stripped away all bank secrecy from the
government’s prying eyes, but also as political extortion, to force
legislators to vote in favor of them.) But contrary to the benign
title on his bill, Leahy is for NO privacy for us and insecurity
for us, and for NSA-CIA-FBI-et al police state power,
as he has amply demonstrated during the current NSA “scandal,”
or “crisis” or “revelations” or whatever half-true
characterization you choose- that is, the temporary inconvenience to
the imperium of having Edward J. Snowden reveal some of the NSA’s
crimes.

Leahy’s proposal is ostensibly aimed
at countering breaches of the databases of large corporations. Taking
advantage of recent headline news of the loss of personal data of
customers by feckless and irresponsible corporations that are too lax
in guarding their computers, Leahy slips in, as if it’s a mere
afterthought, brutally oppressive legal language straight from the
White House of Obama. This is from Leahy’s press release promoting
his evil legislation:

“The [Leahy] bill also includes the
Obama administration’s proposal to update* [sic]
the ComputerFraud and Abuse Act [of 1986] so
that attempted computer hacking and conspiracy to commit computer
hacking offenses are subject to the same criminal penalties, as the
underlying offenses.” Note the “also.” Like saying “Oh, by
the way, we’re also giving ourselves the power to throw you in
prison for decades if you talk about how it might be
possible to hack.” And what is “hacking,” you ask? Pretty
much whatever some prosecutor says it is. That’s what’s
euphemistically called “broad legal language.” “Broad” means
vague and all-encompassing. You’re
at the mercy of the whim of whatever “interpretation” some
prosecutor chooses to put on the law.

So if
you try to do
something or talk about doing
something, it’s as good as doing it. Sort of like getting the death
penalty for planning a
murder. (They’ll probably pass a law doing just that too, one of
these days.)

In his
latest bid to “protect Americans” (his words), Leahy
boasts about his
copying
the
repressive Obama 2011 legislative proposal word for word.
Leahy is apparently proud of
his legislative mimicry,
smuggling in
the Obama regime’s proposal
to “update” the “Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,” of 1986, the
law used
to crush Aaron Swartz’s spirit and drive him to suicide under
threat of 35 years in prison, “so that attempted computer hacking
and conspiracy to commit computer hacking offenses are subject to the
same criminal penalties, as the underlying offenses.” That could be
handy going after WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, since fabricating a
“conspiracy” is as easy as getting an undercover agent, agent
provocateur, or informer-on-an-FBI-leash to talk to a targeted victim
about doing something that will be “interpreted” as a crime. So
if an agent or mole/infiltrator pretends to be able to obtain
government documents by violating rules of access in a computer
system, that trap could be snapped shut. And
I like how they use the word “update,” to imply they’re just
getting the law up to speed with modern times. “Modernize” is
another word they use, as if to say “we’re fixing this
fusty old antique law to make it sleek and modern and shiny.”
“Reform” is another word they abuse when they’re making
something WORSE, not fixing or improving it. Well, I guess from their
perspective, more repressive power for their state IS fixing and
improving. [3]

Think
it can’t apply to you, you who never “do anything wrong”?
Here’s
what TechDirt writer
Mike Masnick had to say about the proposed “update” to
the “Computer Fraud and Abuse Act:”
“And, considering just how broad the CFAA is, think about how
ridiculous that might become. Now if you talk with others about the
possibility of violating a terms of service- say, talking to your 12
year old child about helping them sign up for Facebook even though
the site requires you to be 13- you may have already committed a
felony that can get you years in jail. That seems fair, right?”

That’s just one
example. The possibilities are only limited by the imaginations of
prosecutors and secret policemen.

After Swartz’s
death, there was some pressure, successfully resisted by the awful
U.S. Congress, to scale back the draconian punishments under the
“Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.” Leahy’s law will go in the
opposite direction, making it even more savage, for example doubling
the sentence for a first time offense, from 10 years to 20 years. And
the U.S. government always brings multiple “counts” against its
victims. So the next Aaron Swartz will be effectively facing life in
prison. Thus does Leahy debase the martyrdom of Swartz.

Of course, none of
these laws ever apply to the government itself, such as to the
world’s biggest hacker by far, the “National Security” Agency,
which literally hacks millions of computers a day. [4] Nor
does it apply to the private corporations that are run by “ex-”
secret policemen such as Stratfor Corporation, which commits computer
crimes against anti-corporate organizers and protesters. (We know
this thanks to Jeremy Hammond, who got into Stratfor’s computers
and discovered the evidence of Stratfor’s crimes. Predictably, ONLY
Hammond was prosecuted, and sent to prison for ten years. Ten years
because he had to plead guilty to avoid a life sentence.

The U.S. government, with tens of
thousands of pages of laws at its disposal to use as weapons of
repression, apparently still feels too limited in its power to crush
people.[5]

So the U.S. becomes an increasingly
totalitarian state, with immense power for the corporate state to do
whatever it likes, and criminalization and harsh repression of any
resistance by the subjects of the corporate oligarchy.

Leahy poses as a “liberal,” the
better to dupe the people of Vermont, who should know better, into
repeatedly electing him to the U.S. Senate.

A snake in the grass like Leahy is more
dangerous than overt reactionaries. As a repressive wolf in civil
liberties sheep clothes, Leahy is like a mole, an enemy infiltrator.
He disarms and neutralizes opponents of greater repression and
subverts and undermines their efforts. He is a poison pill.

Leahy is a former prosecutor with the
remorseless, persecutorial mindset of the typical American
prosecutor. Most American prosecutors are indifferent to truth and
justice, and see imprisoning people as a sport. They typically want
to “win” at any cost, by any means necessary, including
suppressing exculpatory evidence, fabricating incriminating evidence,
coaching witnesses to commit perjury, fake “scientific” forensic
“evidence” produced by “crime labs” (that’s actually a good
name for them if we understand them as criminal labs) and other
means. These are routine and daily practices in U.S. courtrooms at
all levels: Federal, state, and local. With some regularity, the tip
of the iceberg of massive U.S. illegality and injustice breaks the
surface and a case gets exposed. The media generally acts as if it
has collective amnesia and usually treats each instance as if no such
thing ever happened before and is highly unusual. The establishment
media obfuscates the patterns of state criminality by focusing on
individual cases. [6]

Now Federal prosecutors may soon have
an even heavier sledgehammer to use to crush enemies of the corporate
oligarchic state, thanks to the notorious Patrick Leahy.

*The Obama police state legislation
is just an “update” of the law, like updating an outdated
computer program, or updating your address and phone number with the
bank when you move. Just routine maintenance. Nothing to see here,
move along.

1] Showing his repressive
instincts in another area, Leahy tried to pass a bill that would have
imposed ten yearprison sentences on food processors
for “mislabeling” their products. It was aimed at “health”
food manufacturers accused of making inflated health claims for their
products. Seems like a civil fine and cease and desist order would be
more appropriate for such infractions. (“Why Patrick Leahy’s Food Safety Accountability Act of 2010 Must Be Stopped.”)

The other U.S. Senator from Vermont is
Bernard Sanders, who brands himself these days as vaguely socialist.
He was a busy-friendly Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, earlier in his
political career. The Democrats always need one national politician
to talk like a leftist, in order to keep duping people who want
change for the better in America to invest their hopes- and votes-
for reform in the Democratic Party, which is a party of corporate
oligarchy and imperialism. Representative Dennis Kucinich filled that
role for a number of years, until the Republican state legislature in
Ohio, Kucinich’s state, gerrymandered him out of his Congressional
district. Now Sanders is the leading Democratic spouter of populist
rhetoric.

2]Swartz was being prosecuted by
the U.S. government, which charged him with multiple felonies under
the “Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,” (CFAA)
for downloading numerous
technical
papers that reported research funded by American taxpayers, from the
site of a corporation that was selling the papers. Swartz felt,
justifiably in my view, that morally this was the property of the
public. He used the computer network of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, a place largely funded by the Pentagon, to do this,
since M.I.T. was a paid subscriber of the corporation selling the
research articles. The U.S. was menacing Swartz with a 35 year prison
sentence for this, even though the company selling the papers
declined to press charges and subsequently offered the articles for
free. For the
tragic, atrocious fate of Aaron
Swartz, who dared to
subvert the power of the establishment by resisting its control
mechanisms, see
“Obama Regime Creates Another Martyr,”
and
“Brace Yourselves For Unintended Ironies in Aaron Swartz Affair.”

The
attack dogs of the corporate oligarchy were sicced on Swartz as
revenge for his leading role in quashing another repressive law, the
“Stop Online Piracy Act,” devised by big media corporations. It
would have empowered the Federal government to take websites off the
Internet based merely on complaints by these corporations that their
copyrights were being violated. No due process. Instead of a
corporation having to bring a civil suit alleging infringement, the
U.S. Government would immediately wipe out “offending” websites.
This is part of a trend of criminalizing anything that big
corporations feel hurt their commercial interests.

4] Apropos
of the double standard the rulers apply to us vs. what they
themselves do, putting themselves above all law while crushing us
under increasingly repressive “laws” and police state
surveillance and persecution, computer security expert Jacob
Appelbaum had this to say about the CFAA in December, 2013: “It’s
so draconian for regular people, and the NSA gets to do something
like intercepting 7 billion people all day long with no problems. And
the rest of us are not even allowed to experiment with improving the
security of own our lives without being put in prison or under threat
of serious indictment.” Appelbaum pointed out that if someone
attempted to code the NSA’s spying programs used to surveil
and break into systems, the U.S. would imprison them for life.
Appelbaum, an American who has worked with WikiLeaks and the Tor
Project, has been forced into exile in Germany by U.S. government
harassment and persecution, including seizure of his electronics. In
Germany his apartment has been repeatedly burglarized by government
agents. See “Snowden ally Appelbaum says his Berlin apartment subject to raids,”
RT,
December 21, 2013, and “Appelbaum: ‘Scary’ NSA will spy on you – every which way they can,”
RT,
December 30, 2013. Appelbaum’s presentations on how thoroughly the
NSA has destroyed digital security are available on youtube.com.

5] The U.S., with a mere
4% of the world’s population, has 25% of the global prison
population. With less than one-fourth the population of China, it
manages to imprison more people than China. The U.S.is the only
nation on earth that sentences juveniles to life in prison- and
without parole too. Yet brainwashed robots insist on parroting that
“America is the freest nation on earth.” Not by objective
measures, it isn’t. (Amazingly, Noam Chomsky is one of the people
who regularly makes that absurd statement, exactly as I put in
quotes.)

It would take a massive tome to catalog
all the savagely repressive laws in the U.S., Federal and of the 50
states. Here are just a few of many, many examples.

In California, under that state’s
“three strikes” law, people can get life in prison for a third
conviction. People have been sentenced to life there for the
following: shoplifting a pair of socks; shoplifting a sweatshirt;
stealing a slice of pizza. The most common “crime” for which
people have gotten life under the law is marijuana possession. Think
about what kind of prosecutor it takes to do that to people. Perhaps
you are less skeptical now about my characterization of American
prosecutors.

Recently there was a slight easing of
the California three-strikes law, but mainly due to the lavish amount
of money heavily-indebted California spends to imprison people- more
than it spends on its state university system, which it has subjected
to large cuts in funding. Other states have similar laws.

Ohio passed a law carrying a 75 year
prison sentence for anyone recording the police. Apparently they
realize their brutally thuggish enforcers have a lot to hide.

Some states have criminalized the
videoing or photographing of animal cruelty on farms and in
slaughtering plants. They’ve even criminalized obtaining employment
at them under “false pretenses,” to criminalize infiltration by
animal rights activists to discover sadistic treatment of animals.
There are “ag gag” laws that define criticism of agricultural
products as libel. Oprah Winfrey was a defendant in a civil libel
suit in Texas for saying “anti-beef” things on television. She
won, because she’s rich enough to successfully defend herself, and
is known to and popular with the general public, and thus jurors.
Hard to demonize. These laws directly conflict with the First
Amendment “guarantee” of free speech in the U.S. Constitution,
forbidding discussing negative health effects of beef, contamination
of beef products, or saying you won’t “eat hamburgers,”
Winfrey’s offense. She spent a few million dollars moving her show
to Texas for the trial and hiring lawyers. She can afford it. You and
I can’t.

And the New
York Times ran a series about a Brooklyn detective who
specialized in framing up innocent people, including for murder, with
the help of the corrupt District Attorney’s office in that New York
City borough. (The long-time, corrupt D.A. there, Charles Hynes,
recently lost reelection.)

Go to nytimes.com and search
“Scarcella.” The search function is at the top of the homepage.

There are numerous other examples in
even the establishment media, plus the “alternative” media, of
frame-ups in the U.S. No doubt the cases that get reported are the
tiniest tip of an iceberg of state venality.